Nias language



The Nias language is an Austronesian language spoken on Nias Island and the Batu Islands off the west coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. It is known as Li Niha by its native speakers. It belongs to the Northwest Sumatra–Barrier Islands subgroup which also includes Mentawai and the Batak languages. It had about 770,000 speakers in 2000. There are three main dialects: northern, central and southern. It is an open-syllable language, which means there are no syllable-final consonants.

Dialects


Nias is typically considered to have three dialects.
 * Northern dialect: particularly the Gunungsitoli variety, Alasa and Lahewa area.
 * South dialect: South Nias, Gomo Area, Telukdalam Area and Batu Islands.
 * Central dialect: West Nias, particularly in Sirombu and Mandrehe areas.

Cognate percentage among the dialects of Nias is about 80%.

The northern variant is considered the prestige dialect. The only complete Bible translation is written in the northern dialect and is used by speakers of all dialects.

Phonology
Nias has the following phonemes (sounds only found in the northern dialect are given in green, southern-only sounds are in red):

Phonetic descriptions of the sounds traditionally written as $\langleö\rangle$ and $\langlec\rangle$ greatly vary. Sundermann (1913) and Halawa et al. (1983) describe them as prenasalized stop and prenasalized trilled stop  for the northern dialect, while Brown (2005) records them as trill  and trilled stop  for the southern dialect. In an acoustic study of Nias dialects from three locations, Yoder (2010) shows a complex pattern of four phonetic realizations of $\langle'\rangle$ and $\langlez\rangle$: plain stop, prenasalized stop, stop with trilled release, stop with fricated release.

The status of initial is not determined; there are no phonetic vowel-initial words in Nias.

The contrast between and  (both written $\langlemb\rangle$ in common spelling) is only observed in the southern dialect. Here, the fricative only occurs in initial position in the mutated form (see §Noun case marking (mutation)) of nouns beginning with f, e.g. fakhe ~ wakhe. The approximant can appear in initial and medial position, and is in free variation with  for many speakers of the southern dialect. For the northern dialect, only fricative approximant is reported, corresponding to both sounds of southern Nias. The semivowel is a distinct phoneme and is written $\langlendr\rangle$ in common spelling.

Grammar
Nias has an ergative–absolutive alignment. It is the only known ergative–absolutive language in the world that has a "marked absolutive", which means that absolutive case is marked, whereas ergative case is unmarked.

There are no adjectives in Nias; words with that function are taken by verbs.

Pronouns
The following table lists the free and bound pronouns of Nias (green = only used in the northern dialect, red = only used in the southern dialect):

Independent pronouns are used: Ya'o zia'a
 * as the predicate in nominal clauses

1SG.IND first.born:MUT

'I am the first-born.' Andrehe'e nasu si-usu ya'o
 * as the P argument of transitive verbs in dependent (including relative and nominalized) clauses

DIST dog:MUT REL-bite 1SG.IND

'That's the dog that bit me.'
 * following certain prepositions and ha 'only'
 * in fronted (topicalized) position

Absolutive pronouns are used: Mofökhö ndra'o
 * as the S argument of independent intransitive and nominal clauses (in the southern dialect, only in realis mood)

sick 1SG.ABS

'I am sick.' I-tegu ndra'o ama-gu
 * as the P argument of transitive verbs in independent clauses

3SG.ERG-scold 1SG.ABS father-1SG.GEN

'My father scolds me.' Ata'u nasu ndrao
 * as the stimulus with intransitive verbs expressing emotions or states of mind

afraid dog:MUT 1SG.ABS

'The dog is afraid of me.'

Genitive pronouns are used: Löna ahono ve-mörö-nia
 * as possessor, e.g. ama-gu 'my father'
 * following certain prepositions, e.g. khö-gu 'to me'
 * as the S argument in nominalized intransitive clauses

not calm NR:MUT-sleep-3SG.GEN

'Her sleep was not restful.' La-faigi vamaoso-ra
 * as the A argument in nominalized transitive clauses

3PL.ERG-see NR:MUT:IPF:raise-3PL.GEN

'They watched them raise [it].' U-fake zekhula ni-rökhi-nia
 * as the A argument in relative clauses with the P argument of a transitive verb as head

1SG.ERG-use coconut:MUT PASS-grate-3SG.GEN

'I used the coconut which she grated.'

Ergative (realis) pronouns are used: I-tataba geu
 * as the A argument in independent transitive clauses (in the southern dialect, only in realis mood)

3SG.ERG-cut wood:MUT

'He cut up the wood.'

Irrealis pronouns are used in the southern dialect: Gu-möi ba fasa mahemolu
 * as the S argument in independent intransitive clauses in irrealis mood

1SG.IRR-go LOC market tomorrow

'I want to go to the market tomorrow.' Gu-moturagö ndraugö khö-ra
 * as the A argument in independent transitive clauses in irrealis mood

1SG.IRR-IRR:tell.about 2SG.ABS DAT-3PL.GEN

'I'm going to tell them about you.'

In the northern dialect, the irrealis pronouns are restricted to third person, and are employed in what Sundermann (1913) calls "jussive" mood. Ya-mu-'ohe

3SG.JUSS-JUSS-bring

'He shall bring it.'

Noun case marking (mutation)
Case marking of nouns is indicated in Nias by mutation of the initial consonant. Several consonants are subject to mutation as shown in the table below. Where a word begins in a vowel, either n or g is added before the vowel; the choice of n or g is lexically conditioned. (For example, öri ~ nöri is 'village federation', öri ~ göri is 'bracelet'.)

Other consonants do not change.

Unmutated case
The unmutated case form is used in citation. It further appears in all functions described above for independent pronouns:
 * as the predicate in nominal clauses
 * as the P argument of transitive verbs in dependent (including relative and nominalized) clauses
 * following certain prepositions and ha 'only'
 * in fronted (topicalized) position

Additionally, A arguments in independent transitive clauses appear in unmutated case, cross-referenced by the corresponding ergative or irrealis pronoun. I-rino vakhe ina-gu

3SG.ERG rice:MUT mother-1SG.GEN

'My mother cooked rice.'

Mutated case
The mutated case form of the noun corresponds in function to both the absolutive and the genitive pronouns: Mate zibaya-nia meneßi
 * as the S argument of independent intransitive and nominal clauses

die uncle:MUT-3SG.GEN yesterday

'His uncle died yesterday.' I-rino vakhe ina-gu
 * as the P argument of transitive verbs in independent clauses

3SG.ERG rice:MUT mother-1SG.GEN

'My mother cooked rice.' omo ga'a-gu
 * as the stimulus with intransitive verbs expressing emotions or states of mind
 * as possessor

house older.sibling:MUT-1SG.GEN

'my brother's house'


 * following certain prepositions
 * as the S argument in nominalized intransitive clauses
 * as the A argument in nominalized transitive clauses
 * as the A argument in relative clauses with the P argument of a transitive verb as head